Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Book Review: The Queen's Daughter by Susan Coventry

I don't know why I should feel such a deep sense of satisfaction for finally reading a book that has been sitting on my shelves unread for over 3 years and my TBR for almost 7 years, but I do. I don't even know if it helps or matters that I enjoyed the book, but I did enjoy it.

The Queen's Daughter is divided up into three sections and follows Joan's life from early childhood, through her time with her first husband in Italy, on crusade with Richard, and then back home again. There's a lot of stuff happening, and most of it is either true or makes sense given what we know about history. There's one bit that has no historical basis though and felt unnecessarily sensational. But, it's not a deal-breaker for me.

I'm usually a little eye-rolly about the whole The Somebody's Somebody trend in naming historical fiction books. A quick glance at my shelves show a whole lot of queen's something or king's somebody and it all seems very uninspired. In this case though, I think it actually works well. Joan is a whole lot less known than her dynamic mother (Eleanor of Aquitaine) and much of her life was impacted by her mother's influence, both directly in the sense of "marry this person, partake in this political scheme, suffer the fallout of Eleanor's political scheme" and internally in the sense that you don't have a mom like Eleanor without it affecting your psychological development.

The latter part especially added an extra layer to the book that I appreciated, and also wish had been developed even further. I wonder if this lack of development is because of the YA format, which, side note, this book also made me again question the line between YA and adult when it comes to historical fiction (all the "adult" situations and the way age doesn't line up with modern YA/adult milestones). The romantic ending also feels like it fits better in adult fiction and reminded me a lot of Anne O'Brien's style. This could have easily been classified as an adult book, and I think it might have been a better fit there and would have reached more readers.

Back to Joan, it felt like Susan Coventry had more to say and explore with Joan's thoughts and emotions, but held back, again, possibly because of the YA format. I would have loved a hundred or so more pages to really dig deeper into Joan's thoughts and relationships with the dynamic people in her life (her father Henry II, Richard, and the other men in her life). As it is, it felt toe-dippy, and just as things are getting good, we pull back and jump to the next event. Still, I appreciate what I did get.

Joan is, basically, mentally scarred by her mother's messed up way of dealing with people and much of this book follows Joan as she comes to terms with this and develops into her own person. Eleanor taught Joan not to trust people, not to fall in love, and to use people to get what you want. While this is all totally conjecture (and the author states that in her historical notes), I can buy it given what we do know about Eleanor, the people in Joan's life, and the historical mark (or lack of mark) Joan made herself.

Bottom line

I didn't realize I had so much to say about The Queen's Daughter. Clearly, it made an impact on me. Joan was an interesting, sympathetic person to follow and her perspective provided further depth to the more forceful players of the time (Henry II, Eleanor, Richard). I wish Susan Coventry would write more, as I'd definitely read another historical offering from her. Recommended for fans of Anne O'Brien.